General Motors sold a record number of Chevrolet Volt sedans in August  but that probably isn't a good thing for the automaker's bottom line.

Nearly two years after the introduction of the path-breaking plug-in hybrid, GM is still losing as much as $49,000 on each Volt it builds, according to estimates provided to Reuters by industry analysts and manufacturing experts.

Yep. They're losing $49K on one car, but multiply that by 100,000 and you get...PROFIT!

When the government and UAW broke the law and stole GM from the bond holders, not only did they get rid of the CEO, they got rid of the entire accounting department, and replaced them with the Underpants Gnomes!

Mark

56
posted on 09/10/2012 8:33:35 PM PDT
by MarkL
(Do I really look like a guy with a plan?)

It is a perfect example of "central planning," one of the core tenets of both socialism and communism.

It means you have people who don't have the faintest idea of what they're doing designing products and implementing production levels of those products without taking into consideration what the consumer wants or needs, i.e. ignoring the idea of markets. They believe they know what the wants and needs of the public are. More to the point, they have a specific goal in mind before they begin, and then build the product to meet the goal, markets be damned.

Mark

60
posted on 09/10/2012 8:45:43 PM PDT
by MarkL
(Do I really look like a guy with a plan?)

"GM is lead by hard core conservatives and their decisions have nothing to do with Obama. They have been making these kinds of bad decisions for over 30 years now. Tesla makes an entire electric run car for that same price and it is much better. It is just bad business on GM's part. They will just be selected out or have to adapt." -krohleder

If my memory serves me, GM started making the Volt because California told them they had to, or they wouldn't be allowed to sell ANY cars in that state. The Obama Administration FIRED Rick Wagoner when it took over GM in 2009. The company is currently run by Dan Akerson, a man hand selected by the Obama Administration, and a corporate CEO who makes far more donations to liberal politicians than conservative ones.

You don't "make it up by volume" when you lose per unit sold. When you lose per unit, you dig the whole deeper with each unit! God damn Gubmint Motors! Its corporate soul is stolen property!

"Make it up by volume" implies you invested a ton in the means of production, and now you hope to make it all back and then some a helluva lot by making a modest sum on each unit sold. Think Steve Jobs.

I spent this past weekend working the Grand Am at Laguna Seca with a gentleman who has owned a Volt for more than a year and commutes 125 miles a day in it. He is an IT guy so he knows computers and he told me that he has accumulated his costs for gas and electricity and figures that it equates to buying gas at $1.41 per gallon. The car has not had any service issues.

If there is a net loss per unit , you can never make it up by volume. For instance, if something costs $10,000 and it's sold for $10,001, the dollar over isn't going to be "making it up by volume" after 10,000 units are sold. If the unit costs $10,000 and it sells for $10,001 dollars, the costs are made up immediately by the first $10,000 of the selling price. The $1, being a receipt in excess of cost, is profit. Costs are never made up on volume. They are only made up only by the individual sale. If the company can sell it for less than the cost per unit and still make a profit, it's because the company is giving up profit on something else that it sells.

President Lincoln was assassinated by a circle of Confederate agents and sympathizers before we had any real security for the chief executive. That was a long time ago. Now we've gone too far the other way. You obviously think that the person of the leader of the USA is so valuable that we should spend billions of our scarce resources to keep him and his family from any harm. I think he should get the same protection as a Fortune 100 CEO, but no more than that. No one is irreplaceable, not you, me or him.

92
posted on 09/10/2012 10:53:02 PM PDT
by 2ndDivisionVet
(You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass.)

NBC isn’t the smartest. GM is losing $49k on each Volt sold due to high development costs and fixed costs. Does NBC think if they sold ZERO Volts they’d lose $0???? The volume is too low given the fixed production costs and development costs. GM needs to sell more, much more. But the market doesn’t exist. So expect obamugabe to force sales to drive down unit costs and reduce losses. It is very unlikely GM is losing $49k per car due to variable production costs.

Aren't we all getting just a little wound up over an off the cuff humorous comment? I got a chuckle out of it, geez.

What's the standard term here, Lighten Up Francis?

No, given the near brain stem level of economic illiteracy that pervades the nation (and is manifested in Congress, the national debt, and economic politards like Obama), it's not getting just a little wound up and every opportunity, even those some, mysteriously, think are humorous, has to be capitalized on.

President Lincoln was assassinated by a circle of Confederate agents and sympathizers before we had any real security for the chief executive. That was a long time ago. Now we've gone too far the other way. You obviously think that the person of the leader of the USA is so valuable that we should spend billions of our scarce resources to keep him and his family from any harm. I think he should get the same protection as a Fortune 100 CEO, but no more than that. No one is irreplaceable, not you, me or him.

I can't believe I allowed myself to get drawn into your bizarre little world again, but here I am. Yours is apparently a diseased mind that finds happiness in arguing. I realize that I am never going to fix that.

I will however point out that YOU introduced Lincoln into this conversation on the cost of presidential safety. Now you are describing extenuating circumstances that still end up with a dead president. Next you are strangely suggesting the entire example (which, again, you brought up in the first place) is irrelevant because it happened a long time ago. Current events: There have been twelve credible threats against President Obama since he took office THAT THE SECRET SERVICE IS TELLING US ABOUT. They investigate thousands of other threats they end up deeming less credible annually. So the idea that the president "should get the same protection as a Fortune 100 CEO, but no more than that," is not just irresponsible. It is demonstrably ignorant. AS far as I'm concerned, the majority of Corporate CEOs generally do important work. But not the entire 100 of them combined faces the same level of existential threats as one US President. And you would know that if you really did work on a security detail as you claimed. You would also know that we do not spend "billions of our scarce resources to keep him and his family from any harm." The entire Secret Service budget is roughly $1.5 billion. In addition to protecting the president and his family, the secret services is the law enforcement body responsible for counterfeiting of currency and Treasury Securities, bank fraud, and other major fraud. The secret service also protects foreign embassies, ambassadors, high ranking government officials, presidential candidates, and former presidents. Again you would probably know that if you actually had worked there. My best guess is that you own the DVD to "In the Line od Fire," and you've "seen it, like, a million times!"

Perhaps we need to trim some fat from the Secret Service? Fine, I can agree with that. But any Fortune 100 CEO worth his paycheck will tell you that you don't start restructuring by cutting assets where they are needed most. And that would be between the president and his family and the very real people who want to kill him.

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